“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” sayeth Dickens, and that sums up the year 1884 in Santa Rosa. Those were days giddy with celebrations, easy money and wonderful progress; it was also a time when our ancestors made some awful decisions which would come to haunt the town years later.

First there was an event that brought a windfall to the town along with publicity that boosters craved. Then old dreams suddenly came true; telephone service began and the train line finally reached the ferries on San Francisco Bay directly – go to the city after breakfast, be back before suppertime. Santa Rosa’s 24-carat destiny seemed inevitable and our ancestors invested in that future with wild abandon. A kind of madness seized them, as often happens when people are surprised to find happy days suddenly no longer around the corner.

The city twisted the arms of other towns to agree on a new county courthouse. They used local tax revenue to build a luxe firehouse and city hall/library as well as taking the first steps toward installing a sewer system. (Sure, it would dump everything into Santa Rosa Creek at the west side of Fourth street, but hey, baby steps still count.)¹

Private investors also raced to build. The most expensive of these projects was the Athenaeum, which was the second largest theater in the state. Most of the original wooden  stores along Fourth street were torn down and replaced by new two and three story brick buildings.

But that money was not particularly well spent. They went on the cheap for the sewer system, which was ridiculously undersized and became a stinking problem in just a few years. The pretty courthouse was so poorly constructed there were safety issues (article to follow shortly). No one questioned why Santa Rosa needed a theater big enough to hold half the town and as a result the place was rarely filled. And because everything mentioned here (except the sewer) was made out of bricks held together with weak mortar, all of it would tumble down in the 1906 earthquake.

Our story begins in late 1883 with the Colton trial. Details can be found in the footnote below but all that we need to know is that the widow of a Central/Southern Pacific executive sued the railroad, charging she had been swindled out of millions. The trial was held in Santa Rosa because it was such a political hot potato no court in San Francisco would touch it, deciding it was best assigned to the Sonoma County Superior Court judge – the esteemed Jackson Temple, a former California Supreme Court justice. The doings lasted almost two years and received considerable national attention, particularly after evidence revealed the corporation routinely bribed judges and members of Congress. Widow Colton lost.²

Writing in the summer of 1884 while the trial was underway, local historian Robert Thompson predicted “…it will cut a considerable figure in any future history of Santa Rosa. It has brought hundreds of persons to this city who would not otherwise have come, and its results will reach in directions not now anticipated.”

It certainly brought in lots of money – legal fees and court costs for the 23 month bench trial exceeded $200k, equal to about $7 million today. There were some thirty lawyers involved; the railroad’s attorneys stayed at the Grand Hotel (“in honor of its distinguished guests, [it] has discarded all the traditions of country hotels and has gone in for a French cook and finger bowls” -Alta California). While Mrs. Colton’s troops were at the Occidental she had rented a house for herself on McDonald avenue, and the carriage company that was usually only in demand at weddings and funerals found itself constantly busy. Their driver even upgraded his old sombrero to a beaver hat.

The Alta California reporter poked fun at provincial Santa Rosa with its “canals of mud, miscalled streets” and that court sessions would begin with the bailiff standing on the balcony outside while barking that Justice Temple had arrived, so the temple of justice was now in session. This was a weary local joke, particularly silly because the bailiff would follow by announcing details of the Sheriff’s livestock auction at noon.

And while the Democrat newspaper had an army of 21 court reporters and printers producing an astonishing eleven thousand pages of court transcripts, the Alta reporter was puzzled why locals seemed indifferent about the case which was mesmerizing others across the country:

(In its defense, the Democrat DID offer readers a single column wrapup of the case when the verdict was rendered – although the paper was more interested in boasting of their transcript printing prowess, which the publisher brought up repeatedly over the following years.)

While the trial flooded the town with cash (and nobody certainly expected the gravy train would chug on for two years) it was the railroad that teased the brightest possible future.

The train arrived in Santa Rosa in 1871 but the southern terminus was Donahue Landing, about eight miles south of Petaluma on Lakeville Highway (more background). From there passengers boarded a steamer that paddled down the meandering Petaluma River/Creek until it eventually reached the San Francisco Bay. But starting in May 1884, the train went all the way to the ferry dock at Tiburon, cutting a one-way trip from about four hours to around 2:15 – maybe a few minutes less, if the ferry captains were racing that day.³

That thirteen years passed before the rail line actually connected to the Bay had left many fearing it would never happen, particularly because there were gaps when no construction was underway at all. The train reached San Rafael in 1878, but from that point south it was hard going, with three tunnels needing to be engineered. Towards the end there were steam drills boring away 24/7 while a new invention called a steam shovel was brought in to create a railroad yard in Tiburon, with gawkers flocking to the scene to see this hi-tech “Steam Paddy”. It’s all quite an interesting story but this is SantaRosaHistory.com, not ReallyCoolMarinRailroadHistory.com – visit the webpage of the Belvedere-Tiburon Landmarks Society for some historic photos.

The premiere trip was May 1, 1884 and was well described in the Sonoma Democrat. A special train left Cloverdale at 5AM, picking up more passengers at Healdsburg before arriving in Santa Rosa. More clambered aboard at Petaluma and San Rafael. Everyone took the ferry to San Francisco, only to turn around half an hour later with a large delegation of San Franciscans. Back in San Rafael there were speeches and a brass band and ceremonial artillery salvos and sandwiches and wine and everyone apparently had a swell time. Still, it was an anticlimax after over a dozen years of anticipation.

All the advantages one might expect from having easier, faster access to San Francisco were reflected in the Santa Rosa newspapers almost immediately. There were more ads from SF doctors, dentists, and other professionals; there were notices about someone going down there or coming up here just for the day; there were items about church groups and societies from the city holding picnics and tourists prowling for something scenic. A downside was that some of the attorneys in the Colton trial began commuting from San Francisco, which probably meant fewer portions of escargots à la bourguignonne and saumon très chauds were being ordered in the hotel dining rooms.

Round-trip fares were initially $3 from Santa Rosa and $2 for Sunday excursion trips, but there were frequent pricing deals. Before long the excursion trains were bringing a thousand or more visitors to Santa Rosa on some Sundays – which turned out to be a terrible mistake.

Looking ahead a couple of years, a commercial park opened where Fourth st. meets College avenue (today it’s the apartment complex at 1130 Fourth street). The park owner made a deal with the railroad for discount tickets, and soon “hoodlums and roughs” were showing up in Santa Rosa, as described here earlier. Local cops were hard pressed to combat the violent drunks from the city who were brawling, stealing, vandalizing and attacking residents. One evening several dozen of them missed the return train and spent the night raising havoc in our streets.

None of these problems had to happen. Petaluma refused to subsidize excursion trains even while they were being encouraged in Santa Rosa; besides the park, realtors had sales promotions that underwrote half of the already discounted excursion ticket price. That Santa Rosa business interests liked the excursions despite the trouble is shown by it taking four years for the City Council to crack down on the riotous scene, and then just canceling the park’s liquor license and not addressing the larger problem. To the article mentioned above I’ll only add my suspicions that it was such leniency to the excursion traffic which led to our town turning into the Bay Area’s “Sin City,” with the largest red light district between San Francisco and Reno (MORE on that).

Of course, Santa Rosans in the spring of 1884 wouldn’t have believed any ol’ Cassandra who warned their bricky downtown would collapse in a few years or that the train service would lead to their town becoming a haven for prostitution and illegal gambling. It was now time to celebrate all the goodness that was happening – including the opening of the new city hall and starting construction on the new courthouse! They were so excited about the latter that a week after the first train arrived from Tiburon they threw a big party for the laying of the cornerstone – and everyone was invited! The ad here appeared in Petaluma, Marin county and San Francisco newspapers.

The Democrat estimated ten thousand were at the ceremony: “…streets were thronged, and groups of people could be found every where, every available window, veranda and awning along the line of march was filled, and the sidewalks were crowded.”

Out-of-town newspapers also covered the doings, and none better than the Alta California – which, Gentle Reader recalls, had a reporter who earlier described Santa Rosa as the city of roses and yokels. Now their anonymous reporter spent a paragraph describing some volunteer fireman from Healdsburg in prose that is the closest thing to erotica I’ve ever seen in a 19th century news article. I imagine more than a few subscribers choked on their coddled egg breakfasts while reading about a guy who was “if not a joy forever, is at least a thing of beauty:”

Give the Alta due respect, however, for being the only paper which mentioned Julio Carrillo’s presence at the ceremonies – although they badly misspelled his name as “Hullio Carrillio.” The reporter touches on how painful it must have been for old Julio to see the land he donated for a public plaza be (probably illegally) redeveloped as the grounds for a county courthouse:

For keynote speaker they dusted off General Vallejo. His whole speech is transcribed below and is notable for not being the usual stemwinder where he would exercise his fractured english until everyone would have begged to give California back to Mexico just to get him to shut up.

The General rambled on about the history of cornerstones and how the Romans begat Spaniards who begat Cortez and the years rolled on, blah blah. But he did say one thing remarkable, claiming he and Governor Figueroa came to the Santa Rosa area in 1835 and every Indian in the area came to meet them: “We had 800 troops. We met here. The tribes of Cayuama, Pinole, Reparato, [sic, sic, sic] and all the tribes were collected here to meet the great General. Very well, and what did we meet? About 20,000 people, all naked; no hats, no shirts, no boots, no anything; well dressed, but all naked.” There’s lots to doubt about that story, but Vallejo really was here in 1835, and it was before the smallpox epidemic which decimated the Native community.

After the ceremony “…the crowd made a vicious rush for Morsehead’s Hotel, where special feeding-troughs had been arranged for their benefit. Soon there was an exodus of teams and travelers by rail, and by afternoon Santa Rosa was sitting clothed in its right mind.” Then the next day the Colton trial resumed and masons went about building lots of brick walls with lousy mortar. It was just another wonderful, busy day in 1884.

Looking northwest across Fourth street in 1885 at some of the newly-built brick buildings which would collapse in the 1906 earthquake. (Photo: Sonoma County Library)

THE COLTON TRIAL

A Truthful Report of Yesterday’s Proceedings.

MRS. COLTON’S TESTIMONY.

Her Early Life, Marriage and Widowhood — Her Legal and Business Advisers – Moneys Drawn from the W. D. Co.

Santa Rosa, February 20th.— The trial of the Colton case is now reaching a point where it is liable to be very interesting. Yet, strangely enough, though Santa Rosa is not suffering from a plethora of dissipation or amusement, the people here leave the trial severely alone. They don’t go the Courtroom, and don’t even discuss the case in bar-rooms, or read the reports, which come up fresh in the San Francisco papers, for the local press never has a word to say about the case, except that the Court is or is not in session. By a sort of mutual agreement the two sides to the case, together with all their henchmen, experts, lawyers and witnesses, live at different hotels, and never by any chance cross the thresholds of each other’s strongholds. The Colton headquarters are at the Occidental, though Mrs. Colton and Mrs. Crittenden have taken a private house on McDonald avenue, Thomas Thompson’s old residence. This, by the way, was a godsend to the United Carriage Company of Santa Rosa. Their hack never expected a job except at burials and weddings, but now it does steady duty drawing Mrs. Colton and her companions two or three times a day through the McDonald mud to the Court House and back. United States Carriage Company’s stock has gone up three points in consequence of the boom, and out of respect to city style the company’s driver now wears a brown beaver hat in lieu of the old white sombrero, his customary head-gear. Charles Crocker and the railroad folks are all at the Grand, between which hotel and the Court intervenes the Plaza, in which a new Court House is building, and canals of mud, miscalled streets. This

DIVISION OF THE FACTIONS

Was the cause of a good deal of anguish to a Call reporter, who came up here last Monday. First, be went to the Occidental, but he had no sooner dumped his trunk than he found it was a partisan headquarters, and for fear of becoming identified with one side, he hastily fled to the Grand. He was eating his supper there when some one mentioned that all the railroad folks were stopping at the house. With an agonised look at the remnants of the meal, he fled to another boardinghouse, from whence he was driven by a remark of the landlady’s that she did hope “that dear old Mrs. Colton would win the case.” It is rumored that he asked leave to sleep in the Courtroom, as that was the only unbiased place he could find, but while several people have reported the rumor, it is not as strongly verified as such an allegation should be before a strictly reliable commercial and family paper, like the Alta, accepts it as a proven fact. Yesterday, when the case was resumed, the Court-room looked more like an old horse auction than a temple of justice. The prisoner’s dock was packed with huge wooden cases, bearing such legends as “Rocky Mountain Coal and Iron Company,” “Contract and Finance,” “Arizona Contract,” etc., and all full of books, papers and accounts of the most solid character. Each of

THE ATTORNEYS

Had a grip-sack full of papers on his own private account, and by the time the bailiff stood on the balcony outside and bawled in loud tones that Justice Temple having arrived, the temple of justice (a standard local joke) was open, and that an auction would be held by the Sheriff of some fat stock at noon, the Court-room was so littered up that Judge Wallace and Charles Crocker, neither of whom possess very sylph-like forms, could scarcely force a passage through the debris…

– Daily Alta California, February 21 1884

THE COLTON TRIAL

Resumed at Santa Rosa After Six Weeks’ Rest.

SEVERAL PARTIES ABSENT.

A Disappointed Attorney for the Prosecution — The Non-Arrival of Certain Books Necessitates an Adjournment.

After a rest of nearly six weeks the Colton trial is again occupying the attention of the whole state with the exception of Santa Rosa, for this pretty little town is too busy watching the slow progress of the new Court House being built in the plaza to be able to pay any attention to so unimportant a matter as a suit for half a dozen railroads and an express company.

The two parties to the suit have observed the same care in the selection of camping grounds as before — the Colton party putting up at the Occidental and the railroad crew away on the other side of town, at the Grand, which latter house, in honor of its distinguished guests, has discarded all the traditions of country hotels and has gone in for a French cook and finger bowls…

– Daily Alta California, April 2 1884

Santa Rosa.

The outlook this coming season is very encouraging, and it seems that building will not cease during the present season. One brick block on Fourth street is approaching completion, and the foundations of two more are being laid. The new Young Ladies’ Seminary building on McDonald Avenue is approaching completion, while in all parts of the city new residences, mainly of that style so peculiar to our city as to be known as the “Santa Rosa Villa,” are being erected. The Santa Rosa Water Company are laying large pipes to the Agricultural Park, which will insure them an ample supply of water during the coming season, and other improvements of minor note, but aggregating thousands of dollars are being made. The city shows no signs of coming to a stand-still in this matter. We hear hints of several more important improvements, but negotiations are still pending, and nothing definite is yet reported. City property is in moderate demand, but the would-be purchasers are more than the sellers at present. Improved property is more in demand than vacant lots, but in the course of the summer, when trains arrive several times a day from the metropolis, building lots will be in still greater demand. A drive through our thoroughfares at present is a pleasure. Many of the gardens are beginning to exhibit Flora’s rare treasures in profusion, and during the coming two months, the “City of Roses” will appear in her glory. Rose culture should be encouraged by all. Nothing adds more to the beauty of our city than neatly kept gardens, which are so easily maintained here.

In the surrounding country the improvements are still more manifest. Everywhere young orchards, and vineyards are to be seen, which in a very few years will add materially to our wealth and prosperity. This is the secret of our prosperity. All this section is notably suited for fruit and vine culture, and after thirty years experience, the best qualities, — those varieties best suited for this soil and climate are known, and fruit and vine is not so much a matter of experiment as it has been in the past. There are yet thousands of acres of chemisal covered hills which should teem with vineyards or orchards. We have mentioned the fact of olive culture being undertaken, and the young trees set out this year in the hills east of here are already showing signs of life, budding and preparing to leaf out. Ten, twenty, thirty and forty acre “patches” of vines and tree fruits are to be found every where, while new houses, barns and other outbuildings abound.

The commencement season of the various institutions of learning, which are the boast of our fair city is at hand, and all who attend from distant parts of the state will see a marked improvement over the past year, and a year hence, it will be found that we have fully kept pace with the preceding one.

– Sonoma Democrat, May 3 1884

The S. F. and S. R. R. R.

Thursday last was a red letter day on the east side of town. Col. Donahue had issued invitations to many citizens to take a run to Point Tiburon and back, on that day. A large number of the prominent men of Sonoma county came down on the 8 o’clock train, and were joined here by our people. After a charming run to Tiburon, a part went to the city, and others stopped at the Point, anxious to take in the improvements located there and have a look at the surroundings. At 10 o’clock Col. Donahue, with several hundred invited guests, left the city by special boat, and reached San Rafael about 11. They were met at the Fourth street depot by a great many of our people who received them with hearty cheering, supplemented by music by the San Rafael Band, all of which but feebly expressed the joy of our citizens at the successful organization of an enterprise which will double our facilities of communication with the metropolis, and confer upon us the countless substantial benefits which must follow that consummation.

the company alighted and inspected the grand and ornate depot, which though not yet completed, is pronounced the finest except one in California.

[..]

COL. DONAHUE

Took the stand reluctantly, but when he spoke it was practical and pointed. This is May Day, he said, the day of play for children, and we are all children. I am glad to see you here, and to be here to see you. We have now the means to bring you here, to give you all a ride. We have had many obstacles to fight in making this road, and it is not yet finished. We have to go slow yet, because we don’t want to hurt you, nor to have any big damages to pay. But we expect to perfect our work by and by, and carry you all to the city and bring you back. And we will do it in forty-five minutes. We want you all to ride, and pay your fare, low fare, and we don’t want any deadheads. I see my banker is here, looking after his security, and I guess he’ll let me have some more money to-morrow. But we will now go on, to Petaluma and Santa Rosa. All get aboard, and we’ll have a ride and some sandwiches.

The train moved off. It only went to Petaluma, and returned about 2 PM. So opened the S. F. and S. R. railroad.

– Marin Journal, May 8 1884

SANTA ROSA’S HOLIDAY.

Laying of the Corner-Stone of the New Court-House.

AN IMPOSING PROCESSION.

The Knights Templar and Masonic Order Participate — Addresses by Judge Wheeler and Others — The Ceremonies.

The man who could imagine Santa Rosa in a real ferment would indeed be blessed with a lively brain, bnt yesterday the quiet little town woke up a little and for a while snorted around considerably. It was indeed a great day for Santa Rosa, and the 7th of May, 1884, will pass hereafter out of the commonplace line of dates and become a never-to-be-forgotten epoch. It was the crowning act of Santa Rosa’s triumph over Petaluma, and Santa Rosa nobly put forth every effort to do itself proper glory. The momentous occasion was nothing less than the laying of the corner-stone of the new $80,000 Sonoma County Court House, which is being built in the old Santa Rosa Plaza. It is true that Santa Rosa gave up to the county a lovely plaza, worth more than a couple of hundred thousand dollars, to get the Court House located within its precincts, and it is equally true that many Santa Rosans speak of the act as an act of vandalism, but then Santa Rosa triumphed over Petaluma and everything went…

…Long before 8 AM, Santa Rosa commenced to fill up with folks from the surrounding country. They came in all sorts of teams, generally well provided with lunch baskets, for there was to be a dance at the Pavilion in the evening, and they proposed not to squander their substance on Santa Rosa hotels. One features of the procession was the presence of all the local and neighboring fire companies, and it was really a beautiful sight to see the Santa Rosa company dip hose to the Healdsburg company, as the “Rescue” from the latter place hove in sight. On each occasions as this a Healdsburg fire Jake, if not a joy forever, is at least a thing of beauty. He is immense, all-pervading, superb, gorgeous, resplendent, effulgent, altogether too utterly much.

HIS UNIFORM

Consists of a blue shirt stamped “Rescue,” a glazed tarpaulin hat which looks as if left over from the Hayes’ and Wheeler campaign. A belt stamped “Rescue,” dark pants, and a smile of the most comprehensive self-satisfaction that it was ever given to man to wear. As his little heeled boots delicately tamped the Santa Rosa sidewalks and he attracted the furtive notice of the Santa Rosa girls, he was too splendidly conscious of his own beauty for anything, and if old Grant had come along just then the General’s hat would have been in his hand before he could restrain a salute to so imposing a spectacle. It was too much for Santa Rosa. The town is hardly large enough of so much gorgeousness and the consequence is that the Court House, town, procession, and the whole Grand Lodge were overshadowed and obscured by Rescue Company Healdsburg No. 1. Even Mark McDonald, who is six feet four, owns the gas and water works, besides an Indian bungalow, and has a whole avenue named after him, shrank to small proportions when the beautiful uniform of Rescue Company hove in sight.

THE PROCESSION

Began to form about ten o’clock, by which time the Plaza was almost full. As the bands began playing, the figure of poor old Hullio Carrillio could be seen leaning from a carriage in the procession. Poor old Hullio. He is one of the last vestiges of the Spanish occupation of Sonoma. His was once the Santa Rosa grant, and far as the eye could reach from where the poor old man stood every inch of the land, every lovely shrub and tree on the hillsides, were once his. He played the role of a Spanish grandee in a lordly fashion; so lordly in fact that one by one his acres slipped away, and as he stood and looked at the gay throng to-day he could not forget that he was poor and landless. In the flush old times, when Santa Rosa first began to be a town, poor Hullio had donated from his possessions two score choice acres for a town plaza, the very plaza on which the Court House was built, and it was but a fitting, kindly act for the committee to have remembered old Hullio and given him a place of honor along with old General Vallejo. The procession formed at the plaza and was a pretty fair article of procession, as the processions go nowadays.

THE MARSHAL AND HIS AIDS

Were a fine lot of men, and though some of them found the honors sat a bit uneasily, they all rode their horses well, and that is more than Marshal’s aids in larger cities always do. The Knights Templar had the van, then came the plain, ordinary Masons, then the Healdsburg and Santa Rosa fire jakes, next a delegation of cadets from some local college, and then the rag-tag and bobtail. The procession marched and countermarched, and then brought up short at the Courthouse, where a stage and an awning had been put up for the accommodation of the orators and the mob. The orators and invited guests were staked out in a square lot by themselves, and it is much to their credit that they smiled pleasantly on the lower orders who were grouped around old Hullio’s plaza. After Grand Marshal Hines, General Vallejo, the original locator of the whole country, opened the ball, so to speak, by paying the weather, the ladies, Santa Rosa and the rest of the folks as many compliments as his grasp on the English language would permit. Supervisor Allen, of Petaluma, was next in say, and he recited the whole

HISTORY OF THE COURT-HOUSE

And the steps taken towards its erection. The next orator was ex-Judge Wheeler of San Francisco, who read a beautiful oration on the Santa Rosa Court-House in particular, and Court-houses in general. The usual box of relics was put in the corner-stone. In it was put copies of the San Francisco and local papers, a copy of the deed of gift of poor old Hullio to the town, a copy of Fullerton’s corrections of exhibit D, as a memento of the Colton trial, a few coins and the card of Miss Bennett, the daughter of the architect of the building. Whenever there was a lull in the proceedings one or more of the rival bands played a tune, and added to the general hilarity of the occasion. After the usual Masonic ceremonies the gathering broke up, and the crowd made a vicious rush for Morsehead’s Hotel, where special feeding-troughs had been arranged for their benefit. Soon there was an exodus of teams and travelers by rail, and by afternoon Santa Rosa was sitting clothed in its right mind. During the evening there was a grand ball at the race track pavilion, where to the music of the boss Santa Rosa band the fairest youth of old Sonoma did the light fantastic till the “wee sma’ hours.” The affair was voted most recherche and the most thoroughly enjoyable event of the season.

– Daily Alta California, May 8 1884

Santa Rosa, May 6th.— The case of Ellen M. Colton versus Leland Stanford et al. was resumed to-day. Donahue’s new train arrangement enables the attorneys to stop over in the city till this morning and reach the Court House by 10 AM…

– Daily Alta California, May 7 1884

Santa Rosa having laid its Court House cornerstone, danced all night at the Pavilion ball, and in other ways worked off the pent-up energy of a dull year, peace was restored yesterday morning and Judge Temple was enabled to resume the hearing of the Colton case…

– Daily Alta California, May 9 1884

THROUGH BY RAIL.

Formal Opening of the Tiburon Route Attendant Festivities.

May-day excursions are frequent, but the one in which a large number of the residents of this county and of other sections of the State participated on Thursday, May 1st, was one of unusual interest and importance. A large, number of invitations had been issued to persona in this county, and a special train left Cloverdale at 5 AM, to convey invited guests from all points above here. When those invited boarded the train at the depot here, about thirty-five persons were found occupying seats, fifteen of whom got in at Cloverdale, and twenty at Healdsburg. The train sped on to Petaluma, another large delegation joined them, and at every station between the last named point and San Rafael, others joined the party. Of course, but little interest was manifested until the train left San Rafael, except an occasional remark relative to the numerous young orchards and vineyards visible at all points, or a casual reference to the beauty of the scenery, now shown to its greatest advantage, as hill and valley are all clad in their green vestments. Such an ever-varying scene of beauty and grandure can be presented on no other line of equal length in the world.

Leaving San Rafael, we glide smoothly along the new road, through a tunnel, over Corte Madera creek, through “the long tunnel,” and over cut and fill with Richardson’s Bay and Saucelito, in full view on the right, past hills on which innumerable herds of cattle are feeding, through the last tunnel, on to Point Tiburon. Here we found the steamer James M. Donahue in the slip, step on board and in twenty-three minutes later, are ready to disembark at Clay street wharf.

On the way down, we noticed among the invited guests…On arriving, [others] joined the party in company with a large delegation of San Franciscans, among whom were the following persons connected with the S. F. and N. P. R. R., Peter Donahue, President, Mervyn J. Donahue, Vice President…

After remaining at the slips about half an hour, the party returned to the Point, and boarded a train composed of the six new cars, the observation car, and Col. Donahue’s parlor car, steamed slowly away to San Rafael. Salvos of artillery from a couple of brass pieces on the bluff above the Point greeted the party. While waiting here, an opportunity was afforded all to witness the “Steam Paddy” load a gravel train.

On arriving at San Rafael, the party was greeted by a delegation of citizens, headed by a brass band. All alighted, and brief addresses were delivered by John Saunders Esq., Judge Bowers and Peter Donahue. Then the larger portion of the guests boarded the train, and went up the road to Petaluma. It was the intention to visit this city, but circumstances prevented, and after remaining at our sister city about half an hour, the train returned. After leaving San Rafael, and all the way back, refreshments were served, and wine flowed freely. The rejoyicing [sic] at the completion of this enterprise was made manifest. When the train reached San Rafael again, the guests again alighted and addresses were made by M. L. McDonald and H. W. Byington of this city. When, after hearty expressions of good will, the guests from San Francisco boarded the train and departed to their homes, while those from this county waited until the arrival of the regular evening train.

The events of the day were enjoyable in the extreme. All the railroad officials exerted themselves to the utmost to entertain the numerous guests, and were preeminently successful. Conductor Chas. H. Mold had charge of the trains, and laid all under obligation for his courtesy and attention.

The expressions of surprise and gratification from some of Sonoma’s best citizens that the work was done, and so splendid a terminus at deep water, were numerous and sincere. It is a grand enterprise, and one in every way worthy the grand old empire of Sonoma.

– Sonoma Democrat, May 10 1884

LOCAL NOTES

—lt ia pronounced Tib-er-oon.

– Sonoma Democrat, May 10 1884

New Time Table.

The new time table of the SF & NPRR which goes into effect on Sunday, May 4th, provides for three passenger trains to arrive and leave this city daily on week days. The times of departure ere 4 AM, 6:40 AM, and 3:45 PM; the times of arrival in San Francisco are 6:45 AM, 8:50 AM and 6:10 PM. The trains returning will leave San Francisco at 7:40 AM, 5 PM and 6:30 PM, arriving here at 10:05 AM, 7:15 PM and 9:20 PM. Trains 4 and 10 will run all the way through from Cloverdale, leaving this point at 5:20 AM and 2:25 PM. No. 1 connects at Fulton for Guerneville, leaving Fulton at 10:15 AM for Guerneville, and returning leaves Guerneville at 1:55 PM.

On Sundays the train leaves San Francisco at 8 AM and arrives in this city at 10:25 AM, and another will leave San Francisco at 5:30 PM, and arrive here at 7:55 p.m. Trains will leave here at 6:45 AM, arriving at San Francisco at 9:10 AM and at 4:25 PM, arriving at 6:15. There is one through train on Sundays, which leaves San Francisco at 8 AM and arrives at Cloverdale at 11:45, and returning leaves Cloverdale at 3 PM.

Freight will continue to come by way of Donahue, leaving San Francisco at 3 PM and arriving at this city at 7:45 AM, and at Cloverdale at 20:30 AM, returning, leaves Cloverdale at 10:20 AM, this city at 2:25 PM, and arriving at San Francisco at 10 AM. The early train, we infer from the appearance of the new time table, will remain over night at this city. The Sonoma travel will pass by the way of Sonoma landing as usual, although there may be a change of time.

– Sonoma Democrat, May 10 1884

THE CORNER STONE LAID.

Gorgeous Ceremonies Witnessed by Ten Thousand Citizens of Sonoma County—Every Section Represented.

Wednesday was just a perfect day. Not even the slightest fleecy cloud was visible in the heavens, and nature seemed in perfect harmony with the events that were to transpire here. The down train, which left Cloverdale at 5 AM, found hundreds waiting all along the line, and when it arrived here at 6:20, the largest number of passengers that ever arrived in this city at any one time, disembarked. Shortly afterwards, vehicles of every description began to arrive, bearing their burdens of humanity, all anxious to participate in the ceremonies, or to witness them. Every interest and firm in our neighboring town, Healdsburg, was represented, and every vehicle that could be obtained was engaged for this occasion. The Hook and Ladder Company, Hose Company, and Rod Matheson Post, G. A. R, arrived about 8 AM, and were taken in charge by the kindred organizations here. At 9:30, Santa Rosa Commandery headed by the Santa Rosa Brass Band, went to the depot to receive Mount Olivet Commandery, of Petaluma, which arrived on the 10:05 train, and escorted them to their asylum. By this time the streets were thronged, and groups of people could be found every where, every available window, veranda and awning along the line of march was filled, and the sidewalks were crowded. By 11 AM, the different divisions were formed, and shortly afterward Grand Marshal De Turk gave the signal, and the column moved in the following order…

[long list of parade participants and parade route]

…After the column halted and disbanded, the Grand Lodge F. and A. M., took their positions on the platform, accompanied by the officers of the Day and a number of invited guests, the different orders of the Masons formed in due and ancient form about the corner stone.

Exercises at the Laying of the Corner-Stone of the Sonoma County Court House, at Santa Rosa, May 7,1884.

 Mr. R. A. Thompson. Fellow citizens, I have the honor of introducing to you one of the most distinguished citizens of Sonoma county, as President of the Day, on this most auspicious occasion. I allude to the Honorable Mariano G. Vallejo, the oldest, as well as one of the moat honored citizens in all the confines of Sonoma. (Applause.)

 General Vallejo. Members of the Committee on Invitation: Ladies and Gentlemen.

 I thank you very much, out of the fullness of my heart, for the invitation tendered me by the Committee in charge of the celebration of this day. I cannot speak the English language well, but I will try my best to make a few remarks about this celebration.

According to tradition and history, if my memory does not deceive me, ceremonies of this kind commenced with the Egyptian nation. Their civilization they transmitted to Greece. When those great pyramids were built they say that the corner-stone of the great pyramid was laid with great formalities. At those times those cornerstones meant power, despotism and slavery. Now we mast together to lay this corner-stone for civilization, not for tyranny. We are all free and we do it of our own will. (Applause.)

I congratulate the people and the citizens of Santa Rosa and of the whole of Sonoma County on the wisdom ol the Supervisors of our county here, in planning the erection of this building, I congratulate you on this joyful occasion. The ceremonies of this day here remind me how that they built with great ceremony the famous edifices of antiquity, as for instance, how they laid the corner stone of the Temple of Ephesus. Excuse me, gentlemen, this is a surprise to me, and these remarks are unpremeditated. If I commit a little blunder, excuse me. After Greece, the next civilization was the Roman. With the Romans, after Sylla and the old Caesars, one of the best and most stupendous occasions was to lay the corner stone of the Column of Trajan. It exists now in that very Rome today. From Rome, after seven hundred years of war with the Spaniards, they bring the Roman civilization and get persons to lay corner stones on those old monuments.

One of them, built about 300 years ago, was the Escurial at Madrid. Madrid is the capital of Spain; everybody knows it, but there are not many monuments like that.

From Spain I must make a jump with Columbus to this continent 390 years ago. On the island of Cuba they built a fine building, and had a great time in erecting it, for they did everything with great ostentation and ceremony. From Cuba, Cortez went to Mexico and established the National Palace and the Cathedral of Mexico. That was a great day, or as we call it, a gay day for a celebration, and there were great formalities.

Then I remember, according to the history of the United States, that vessel by the name of the Mayflower came to Plymouth. They made a landing there, and years rolled on, until Independence was achieved, under General Washington. Then they laid the corner stone of the Capital of our nation at Washington, as it stands there, and that capital was built with a great deal of ceremony and grandeur.

And not to be long in my remarks, some friends came to this very county, in my own Sonoma house, and they raised the Bear Flag. Then the government was changed and we had a Legislature, and we built a Capital at Sacramento, which is there now. That means civilization and power. They are the people to do what they please, If they try to make the tower of Babel again I think the people of the United States can do it. (Applause and laughter.)

Now, sir, to go a little further down, our counties began to be built up; Sacramento was the capital of the State, and other counties began. But this is the first one to come to this formality, and I am so glad to hear it, because this very month, nearly fifty years ago, in 1835, I was not on this stone, but in the neighborhood here, with General Figueroa, Governor of the State then. We had 800 troops. We met here. The tribes of Cayuama, Pinole, Reparato, and all the tribes were collected here to meet the great General. Very well, and what did we meet? About 20,000 people, all naked; no hats, no shirts, no boots, no anything; well dressed, but all naked. (Laughter and applause.)

Well, gentlemen, now, what a surprise to me. I was here the first; not the discoverer, but the first settler in this very country, Sonoma county. I was the Chairman in 1850, of the Senate committee to select Sonoma county. Very well. What a contrast to see here a heaven of ladies, who all seem to me angels! [Applause.] Respectable gentlemen here, Supervisors, printing offices, science, arts, railroads, sewing machines, telephones and everything. [Laughter and applause.] You see what a difference it is to me. I am astonished. It seems to me I ought to die here, because I see now the end. Not the end of civilization, but this is one of the proofs that Sonoma county must be a great and powerful county anyhow. [Applause.]

The poets say that those who are born in a country like this with such scenery, climate, water, trees and flowers, must be in harmony with their surroundings. So you are a great tremendous bouquet of flowers and intelligence.

Now, the day when we were here, fifty years ago, was a day of great distress to the chiefs of those tribes. One of the chiefs died, and they made preparations to cremate his body. They made a great funeral pyre of logs, small pieces of wood, and trees, and they burned the body there. That circumstance is brought to my mind now, and I hope that after this corner stone is laid and this house is built to stand for ages, that we will adopt cremation, because we should not allow our bodies to go to the worms and be eaten up. If we are spiritual, we must go to the spirit world at once, and not be ploughed up afterwards.

 Ladies and gentlemen; I hope you will excuse my remarks. I do not know how to speak, but I am trembling with pleasure to see such a concourse here. Masons, Druids, Odd Fellows, and everybody else, and I am here alone seeing these things with joy. My heart is full. I ought to explode. (Laughter and applause.) Allow me to introduce the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors…

…The Grand Master. Brother Grand Treasurer, it has ever been the custom of the craft, upon occasions like the present, to deposit within a cavity in the stone, placed at the northeast corner of an edifice, certain memorials of the period at which it was erected, so that, if in the lapse of ages, the fury of the elements, the violence of man, or the slow but certain ravages of time should lay bare its foundations, an enduring record may be found by succeeding generations to bear testimony to the untiring, unending industry of the fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons. Has such a record been prepared?

The Grand Treasurer, A. Wright. It has, most worshipful Grand Master, and is contained in the casket now sealed before you.

The Grand Master. Brother Grand Secretary, you will read the records of the contents of the casket.

(The Grand Secretary, E. W. Davis, reads the list of the articles contained in the casket.)

Articles contributed tor the comer stone by R. A. Thompson: “California As It Is” written by seventy leading editors and authors of the Golden State, for the weekly Call; map of the State of California; historical and descriptive sketch of Sonoma county; map of Sonoma county; Resources of California, with pictures and descriptive sketches of Santa Rosa and Petaluma, Sonoma county; one cent, date 1817; one half-dollar, date 1831; Obsidian arrow-head from California; Indian arrow-head from Washington Ty.; Russian River Flag; Pacific Sentinel; the Sonoma weekly Index; the Petaluma Courier; the Sonoma Democrat; the Healdsburg Enterprise; the Petaluma Argus; rosters of State and county officers; State and county Governments, 1883, Executive, Judicial and legislative Departments; Thompson’s map of Sonoma county, 1884; copy of Republican. daily and weekly; Sonoma County Journal, (German); Sonoma county “Land Register,” published by Guy E. Grosse, Proctor, Reynolds A Co., real estate agents; cards of the architect and his daughter; copy of Day Book… [lodge rosters and documents] …financial report of Sonoma county for 1881, 1882, 1833 and 1884; Sonoma county Court House—A. A. Bennett and J. M. Curtis, architects; Carle & Croly, contractors; copy of San Francisco evening “Bulletin;” copy of daily “Alta California;” copy of daily “Chronicle;” copy of dally “Call;” copy of daily “Examiner;” copy of daily evening “Post,” with compliments of C. A. Wright, news agent Santa Rosa; muster roll, bylaws and constitution of Santa Rosa Commandery, No. 14, K. T.; muster roll, bylaws and constitution of Mt. Olivet Commandery, No. 20, K. T., of Petaluma; by Losson Ross, a quarter of a dollar, date 1854; by James Samuels, 5 cent nickel, 1869; by A. P. Overton, ½ dime, 1840; by E. Crane and A. P. Overton, one standard silver dollar, 1884; by Mr. and Mrs. S. R. Smith, one copper cent, 1833; and one copper two-cent piece of 1865; card of M. Rosenburg, merchant, builder of the first brick store in Santa Rosa.

The Grand Master. Brother Grand Treasurer, you will now place the casket within the cavity, beneath the corner-stone. (The casket is deposited in its place.)

[..]

– Sonoma Democrat, May 10 1884

1884.

Sonoma County’s Advance in Importance and Interest.

A Cursory Review of the Events of the Year That Has Just Passed.

SANTA ROSA
Has made splendid advancement. In public improvements, ten brick stores, one hall and a brick warehouse have been completed in 1884, while not less than thirty frame houses have been added to this city in the form of residences, besides the Athenaeum, which, when completed, will be one of the finest theater buildings in the State, and a new and commodious grammar school. Santa Rosa presents one of the most modern appearances of any interior city in the State. The residences, generally, are picturesque and handsome, while the splendid location and salubrious climate present attractions not to be resisted. For the coming year, contracts for the erection of over $40,000 of new brick buildings are already let, and the prospects for a prosperous year were, never so good.

– Sonoma Democrat, January 3 1885

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